The Supreme Court has reversed the 1996 relocation of the headquarters of Ilejemeje Local Government Area of Ekiti State from Eda-Oniyo to Iye-Ekiti.
A five-man panel of the court, in a unanimous judgment on Friday, said the relocation, announced via a radio broadcast by then military Governor of the state, was unlawful.
The court agreed with the appellant – Oba Julius Awolola – that, by virtue of the State Creation (Transitional Provisions) Decree No. 72 Vol. 83 of 1996, and the Local Government (Basic Constitutional Provisions) Decree of 1997 and 1998, the headquarters of Ilejemeje Local Government area was Eda-Oniyo.
Justice Paul Galinje, in the lead judgment, held that the location of Local Government’s headquarters in Eda-Oniyo was backed by statute and could not be relocated elsewhere without the state enacting a new law after repealing the earlier one.
He said: “The location of the headquarters of Ilejemeje Local Government in Eda-Oniyo is a product of statute and no law has been promulgated to relocate it to any other place.”
Justice Galinje set aside the March 6, 2006 judgment of the Court of Appeal, Ilorin division, which okayed the relocation.
Instead, Justice Galinje restored the earlier judgment of the Ekiti State High Court, which in 2001 held that Eda-Oniyo was the lawful location of the Ilejemeje Local Government Area’s headquarters, but failed to order a reversal of the relocation.
Justice Galinje invoked the court’s power to, after reversing the relocation, order the state government to take immediate steps to return the Ilejemeje LG headquarters to Eda-Oniyo from where it was relocated to Iye-Ekiti shortly after the state was created on October 1, 1996.
The case started in the High Court of Ekiti State with the suit filed in 1999 by the traditional head of Eda-Oniyo (the Eleda of Eda-Oniyo), Oba Julius Awolola.
Awolola had, by his suit, challenged the Ilejemeje LG’s headquarters from his community, as reflected in the state’s law law, to another community, without any legal justification.
Oba Awolola had instituted the appeal in 2008 to challenge the judgment of the Court of Appeal which had ruled in favour of the respondents.
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